First paying gig team pictures

These are of our puppet team at church. They were taken with a borrowed point and shoot. This is my way of raising the money for a good camera. I am very new so DON"T be gentle. Be brutle, I want to learn as much as possible.

I may have made them a little too small for posting. Sorry. This is just a sampling of some of the pictures I took.

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A few more:

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A couple more:

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pictures are a little flat but it might be because of sizing.
great job for a point of shoot.
I like them

Nice

Just a few pointers...

The first one looks good, but is too small to be able to see details.

For the second, I suggest you use a hairlight when photographing dark haired people with a dark background, as the hair bleeds in the background if you don't.

The third is cute and the fourth is excellent! Maybe darken the t-shirt a little, but you don't need to.

The fifth one is very nice. I'd only suggest darkening the t-shirt area. It is way too bright.

On the last photo, your light source is too low. You can see the reflection at the bottom of her eye, and it looks strange. A backlight wouldn''t have gone astray either, but you don't "need" one.

Kelsey-Lee wrote in post #2175850
Nice

On the last photo, your light source is too low. You can see the reflection at the bottom of her eye, and it looks strange.

Thank you for all of your pointers but this one especially. I was wondering why it looked like you sould see a tear in her eye. I have a few other pics with the same effect. I was trying to figure out what was causing it.

Not a bad start. Your white balance is off in pic 3 though.

Since you created them using a point & shoot I'll only make one suggestion. Whether using a point & shoot, or a DSLR, always give yourself room to crop later. In the big group you have too much room at the top and it's cutr off at the bottom. If you had taken a couple of steps back, you would have had the bottom in and could have cropped evenly. As you are ready to squeeze the shutter release, look at all corners in the viewfinder window to make sure you are not cutting off anything important.

The concepts on the individual pictures are great and the other comments relating to them are spot on... So I will comment on the group photo.

Plain and simply, The group photo is unbalanced.

In the first row, you have 6 out of 8 subjects to the left of center. In the third row, you have 8 of 10 to the left of center. The right side of the picture looks bare and the left side overcrowded. THis can be seen also by using the rule of thirds. The right third of the photo has 7 subjects, the left third has 11. This unbalance makes the photo "feel funny". ( By the way, You don't want to have equal numbers in all three "thirds", you want about 50 - 60% in the middle and 20 - 25% to each side.)

Since your photo includes human and non-human subjects (at an equal ratio), I would also suggest balancing this by either:
1 - By row - each row should have the puppet on the same hand, and alternate by rows (Row 1 puppet on left hand, Row 2 puppet on right hand, etc.)
2 - By right to left - Everone on the left of center has the puppet on the right hand, everyone to the right of center has the puppet on the left hand.
3 - Top to bottom - each human should hold the puppet in front of themselves.

Most people think getting everyone to smile at the same time is the hard part of Group pictures... I think the most difficult part is balancing the shot.

I shoot mostly sporting events and the team photos are always more difficult than the action shots. I have stopped trying to get good balance from my 9 year old son's soccer team, they are just too squirmy!

Hope this advise helps.

SoccerRef, I really appreciate all of the advice. Now that you mention all of that, it makes since. I was more concerned with trying to get them all to look and smile at the camera than I was with balance.

Here is another that I took. I actually think it looks a little better but the team director liked the one with the puppets better. The balance in this one was accidental because I didn't realize all of the stuff you just told me about balance.

Now I am thinking the director needed to be on the other side of the team on the middle row.

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Love the Krispy Kream print deco on the shirts. Did they sponsor your team?

Looks like your doing pretty good with the photo work. The other posters gave you some great advice.

Yes, the second one without the puppets is better balanced. And you are right, the director plays with the balance a little bit.

GOOD things in this one (be they accidental or not):
- The arrangement of the kids is much more balanced.
- I can see all of their faces
- There is uniformity to their pose, yet they are not rigid

Criticisms (not to be picky, but to help...):
- Have the director sit (either where you suggested, or even where she is, if she were sitting she wouldn't be an anomoly in the picture)
- The girl in the front row second from the left... Had she pointed her knees the other way, all of the "lines" created by the legs in the front row would point to center, and you gain even more uniformity.
- I would have switched the girl with the long blonde hair with the girl dead center in the second row. Reason, her jeans are a much lighter color than the others in the row and thus she stands out. Switching these two girls gives color balance to the first row.

Overall, these are great pictures, again, I loved the singles. Having taken many pictures of choirs, orchestras, and sports teams (primarily soccer) I have grown a "second sense" on what makes a good group shot.

PS - I also LOVE the "Krispy Kreme" style t.

SoccerRef wrote in post #2178824
I would have switched the girl with the long blonde hair with the girl dead center in the second row. Reason, her jeans are a much lighter color than the others in the row and thus she stands out. Switching these two girls gives color balance to the first row.

I literally laughed out loud when you told me this. It was a very aha moment. I can tell you obviously have a lot of experience. These are things I never noticed but now that you point them out, they are blatantly obvious. Thanks so much for your imput. I love to learn and am so excited about getting better.

P.S. I love the shirts too but I had nothing to do with them.

Balance and cropping are two areas already addressed so I won't pick those up. But one very big help would be a small step ladder. When you get these on the computer you will find that they are not sharp front to back. Regardless of the f stop- you can set to 22 and it won''t make a diff. This is due to the scheimpflug rule. What> Without getting too technical the lens and subjects are on two different planes of focus, so if you can raise your camera to the top of the subject and tilt your camera down you will get everyone on sharp focus providing you 1/3 into your scene and use enough DoF.

I have been doing this for years with both Hassys and LF cameras, and have group shots over 70 people razor sharp. Just looking at the first image there are sharpness issues in the very back and front.

I hope this helps, also do a search for the scheimpflug rule there are several good referances on the web.

Les

I really have few negative things to say because everyone has pretty much attacked everything already!

-Just make sure you watch the "clipping" like mentioned above. Especially when takeing group pictures, you wuoldn't want to be the one kid with your legs cut off, or side of body

For a P&S, those are really great! i like the 2nd team pic better personally!